Edward E. Boccia (1921-2012) is a widely collected yet overlooked American artist. The publication offers an intimate journey of discovery of the life and work of this modern painter whose pictorial language reveals a vision of universal experience, love, loss and suffering as well as deep connection to literature, mythology and the canons of art history. Throughout his long career, American artist Edward E. Boccia developed a new genre of contemporary monumental panel painting that functioned as devotional art while raising questions about ethical, philosophical, and stylistic problems in twentieth-century America. His bold paintings speak of longing and desire, loss, grief, and spirituality and yet remain deeply connected to the legacy of historical Italian art. In telling the story of an artist from the diasporic community of Italy, the book expands the field of American art history offering a close look at a complex body of work and riveting life story. Lushly illustrated images seen for the first time in public of the artist's complex paintings including trifolds of panel paintings